For those of us in DC, needing to learn new snow-time skills

xkcd.com

Waiting for the intermissions in this one mass snow storm we're calling "Winter"

A friend inquired if I'd been out to see that the roads were passable again after all the snow. I responded, I know. It's crazy.

The world is new again.
Or at least it will be after all this damn snow melts.
And then all the mud and pebbles and general smoosh are washed away by a good rain.
And then we get small winter heat wave so that water doesn't freeze into ice.
Then, the world will be new.
Until it snows again.

Granted, I've only been to the lobby of my building to see out the front doors, from behind their glass. (My windows are on the side of the building, giving me an angled view of the building next door and the building behind us. All in all, a skewed view.) I was out two days ago before this last storm, and I'll go out again tomorrow... before the next storm hits this weekend.

Because of Rob, who asked for a blog post today about something unexpected

I just watched Henry Louis Gates, Jr's new series on PBS, Faces of America. It's a geneology project taking twelve well-known Americans as its subjects. (It's good; you should watch it.)

Mike Nichols said something interesting tonight. He found out that certain Russian great-uncles of his were killed (one was tried and shot the same day) and he didn't know anything about them, that they'd ever existed. They talked about guilt and Mike said basically that it was no different than the guilt over all the rest of it - the not knowing and everyone being killed. "But the only thing you can do with guilt, other than bury it, is to do something worthwhile, make something good from it." (quote approximate) He called himself a putz for ever complaining about anything because he is just so lucky to be here, to have survived, when so many people didn't. It is so unlikely to have all possible events allow him to make it here and live that he should never have complained about anything.

And it's true - it is so unlikely that all of my great-grandparents (and their parents, etc) were able to survive, and then make it out of Europe around the turn of last century. For me to be here now is just lucky.

NaNoWriMo

I'm doing it. NaNoWriMo - National Novel Writing Month, taking place during the month of November. (details: http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/whatisnano)

It's a minimum of 50,000 words in a month - doable if you've ever been a grad student; in fact, you've probably been right on track to do this if you've ever done the classic "write-a-million-pages-right-before-the-deadline" move.

Though meant for fiction, I'm using it to bang out something on the grand Lithuania project, and so it will probably remain nonfiction - specifically, creative nonfiction.

Before you ask one of my least favorite questions ("So, hahahah, 'creative nonfiction' - does that mean you get to make stuff up? You get to lie?! Hahahahah"), let me explain that creative nonfiction is still nonfiction, as in, you don't present anything as truth that is not truth/what happened. It is simply a creative, story-telling way of presenting the true story. It often reads like a novel, yet happens to be true.

Yes, memory is a faulty thing. Yes, people have different versions of the truth. The point is that you write what you believe to be authentic, with the knowledge that someone else my write it differently and the knowledge that you will shape the story that you want to tell. But you can't make stuff up (without saying so).

Could be a memoir, could be the story of a historical event, among other things. It is different from "straight" journalism. (Although, literary journalism - a la Joan Didion - is creative nonfiction, but again, that's different from straight journalism. And you likely know it when you're reading it.)

So, as promised lo those many months ago, I will be filling in more details about my time in Lithuania and some historical details I find fascinating. (Don't worry - I won't be using words like "lo.")

No, really. It'll happen this time.

My favorite sign in Vilnius

My guess is that it means not to leave your house with your hockey stick lying outside, while your small child kicks a ball.

Home again, home again

I wasn't sure why I've been balking so much at the idea of writing up what I know:
Because I have relatively few journalistic sensibilities. I chafe at those moments when I'm supposed to employ them. Like keeping a journal. Or a blog. (As I've said before, I am a terrible journal keeper.)

While I am a fan of nonfiction (reading it, writing it), journalism wants the whole story, all of the details, every questioning W answered. That inclination seems oppressive to me. The glut of it all. The sliver of the story I want, mixed into the soup of the rest of it.

I have notes and photos and documents gathered from my time in Lithuania, both from the fascinating class time and from the trips to the current towns that used to be the old family shtetls of Linkuva, Shilal, and Gorzd. I will share what I know. But it is taking me longer than I thought. (No, I don't need it to be "perfect," but I can only do this the way I do it.)

It's been said that when foreign writers come to Lithuania, Vilnius particularly, either they write quite a bit, or they can't write at all and aren't able to put it all down (whatever "it all" happens to be) until they get home (wherever "home" happens to be). As it turns out, I'm part of the second group.

I am just beginning to regain my sense of time, casual though it's always been. (I have started waking up in the sevens versus the sixes. When we get to the elevens, consider me un-jet-lagged.) I am still surprised at how much English I hear spoken around me in DC, and I'm somewhat less surprised at my difficultly in finding words (which tends to happen when I'm out of sorts). But I appear to be writing a bit. (Hey, look, it's a blog post!)

I meant this blog to be far more regularly updated and updated with the actualities of what was happening. Sometimes that happened, but usually, it was other stuff that got posted.

Eventually all these notes and photos and documents will be sorted and I'll figure out what I want to say about it. But before then, there will be blog posts with the glut of information.

Shalal, Gorzd, and moving forward

Yesterday was a good day, and we found some neat stuff.

("Why, Halley, that was an opaque statement that tells us very little."
"Yes, straw man, it was intended to be.")

After a few weeks of work, especially this last week, I am off to spend four days at a spa in Druskininkai. When I'm not in a massage or a mud bath or a mineral dip or accupressure session, I plan on writing, so there is more to come soon.

And yes, I too was a bit nervous at first when I heard "Eastern European spa," but the place I am going to appears to be modern and lovely, from all accounts. And they had a package deal where I get all sorts of fun treatments and other stuff each day plus accommodation in their four star hotel for about the price of a night's stay somewhere.

So pardon me while I pack and prepare. I have to get to my consultation with my wellness coach. After the two-hour bus ride south, of course.

(The final bit of awesome here is that I can store my big backpack at the guest house here in Vilnius and pick it up on my way out in a week or so, so I don't have to schlep it. If you're happy and you know it clap your hands...)

New photos

Two new albums are up at halley.shutterfly.com .
As always, no labels yet.

But you can probably figure out some of the archive files.
Especially if you read Cyrillic or Yiddish.
I do not.

Otherwise, there are some just regular 'ol photos, too, which have no associated paperwork.

Linkuva

I'm writing something up on my trip to Linkuva yesterday. Or rather, I'm trying to. I'm now sitting at the little kitchen table in my room, because sitting in the bed and trying to motivate myself to get going wasn't working so well. I hold out no great hopes for today, but we at least have a better shot over here.

Linkuva is the shtetl where my father's mother's mother came from, before coming to the US around 1900. At that time, the town was already about 400 years old.


View Larger Map

Here, have a quickie video of us driving into town.
Yes, I know it's shaky. We are coming in a sort of back way, on a bumpy dirt road. I am driving. And shooting the video at the same time on my regular digital camera. Not looking at what I'm filming very much, because, y'know, I'm driving and watching the road.
So yes, I know it's shaky.



And a photo in town (click to embiggen):

And the next one is of houses on the square:

And one more town shot, for now:

Bob Herbert

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/08/opinion/08herbert.html?em

"I wrote, at the time, that there would have been thunderous outrage if someone had separated potential victims by race or religion and then shot, say, only the blacks, or only the whites, or only the Jews. But if you shoot only the girls or only the women — not so much of an uproar."

"We profess to being shocked at one or another of these outlandish crimes, but the shock wears off quickly in an environment in which the rape, murder and humiliation of females is not only a staple of the news, but an important cornerstone of the nation’s entertainment."